![]() Preliminary results show that there is significant risk to the housing sector in the region, which is exacerbated by the lack of maintenance, and owners’ modifications of the buildings’ structural elements. The session on seismic risk sought to set the stage for this problem. ![]() Regrettably, the magnitude of this risk is not adequately quantified or understood. Unpacking the seismic risks in the housing sectorĪ major challenge in European and Central Asian countries is the seismic threat faced by certain multifamily buildings that are believed to have outlived their design lifespan, and suffer from serious deterioration and disinvestment. A key lesson from the discussion is that close collaboration between social protection and disaster risk reduction agencies is crucial to overcoming these challenges, particularly in the areas of long-term capacity building, early warning system development, and the gathering of recovery data. As Roberto Sanchez Avalos of the Mexican Ministry of Social Development elaborated, data gaps, targeting and coordination remain key challenges they continue to face in implementing PROSPERA, even over two decades after it was first launched back in 1997. The session on social protection focused on how Serbia could emulate Mexico’s example – and, by some accounts on the panel, this will be no easy feat. Managing disaster risk through social protectionīy building resilience to shocks, social protection systems are increasingly proving to be effective instruments for helping the most vulnerable prepare for and respond to disaster – perhaps no more so than in the case of Mexico and its social inclusion program (PROSPERA). There are some signs, however, that political will is building which could help surmount these obstacles, paving the way for the region to fully capitalize on emerging technologies and approaches which are facilitating real-time monitoring of hydromet hazards. While the countries of the Balkans are increasingly opening up their observational data to their peers in part due to the European Union’s flood directive, political and administrative obstacles remain which are inhibiting deeper regional cooperation, including on transboundary flood forecasting. During the session on multi-hazard early warning systems, panelists broadly agreed that a regional challenge requires a regional response that leverages the data, expertise and capacity across the region. Hydrometeorological (hydromet) hazards in the Balkans know no boundaries – last year’s scorching heatwave and the destructive flooding of 2014 put this in a stark light. The importance of regional cooperation in addressing hydromet hazards One barrier to closing this gap, which was discussed in the session, is that that governments continue to distribute post disaster subsidies and financial aid indiscriminately, thus making homeowners, farmers, SMEs and municipalities reluctant to buy insurance coverage. However, while the project has helped increase the availability of highly affordable disaster insurance products, demand has been slow to pick up, which helps explain why the disaster insurance protection gap – or the gap between insured losses and economic losses from disasters – in the Balkans remain high. The promise and potential of disaster risk insuranceĪt the session on catastrophe insurance, there was cautious optimism that the World Bank’s Southeast Europe Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility Project (SEE CRIF), which is being implemented by Europa Re, could go far toward increasing affordable catastrophe insurance coverage for homeowners, farmers, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and municipalities in the region. UR Balkans was hosted by the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), the World Bank and the Government of Serbia, with the financial support of the European Union. In case you couldn’t make it to Belgrade, here are some of the most revealing insights and takeaways from the conference. It was against this backdrop that hundreds of experts and practitioners from the resilience and disaster risk management community, including dozens of young people, shared ideas, best practices, and lessons learned on identifying, communicating and assessing risk at Understanding Risk (UR) Balkans, the first ever gathering of the 10,000-strong UR community in the region. ![]() As extreme weather becomes the “new normal” in the Balkans, governments and communities across the region are striving to better understand the climate and disaster risks they face so that they can put in place the appropriate policies and strategies.
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